by Jim Butcher
“Let me get this straight,” Murphy said. “You’d just walk away because these murdering creatures didn’t fit into your schedule?”
“Yes.” Kincaid kept eating.
“It doesn’t bother you that innocent people might die because of them?”
“Not much,” Kincaid said, and took a sip of coffee.
“How can you just say that?”
“Because it’s the truth. Innocent people die all the time.” Kincaid’s fork and knife scraped on his plate as he sliced up some ham and eggs. “They’re better at it than your average murdering monster.”
“Jesus,” Murphy said, and stared at me. “Harry, I don’t want to work with this asshole.”
“Easy, Murph,” I said.
“I’m serious. You can’t condone his attitude.”
I rubbed at my eyebrow with a thumb. “Murph, the world is a cruel place. Kincaid didn’t make it that way.”
“He doesn’t care,” Murphy said. “Are you sure you want someone who doesn’t care about what we’re doing along when things go to hell?”
“He agreed to go and fight,” Harry said. “I agreed to pay him. He’s a professional. He’ll fight.”
Kincaid pointed a finger at me and nodded, chewing on another bite.
Murphy shook her head. “What about a driver?”
“He’ll be here today,” I said.
“Who is he?”
“You don’t know him,” I said. “I trust him.”
Murphy looked at me for a second and then nodded. “What are we up against?”
“Black Court vampires,” I said. “At least two, and maybe more.”
“Plus any help they might have,” Kincaid said.
“They can flip cars with one hand,” I said. “They’re fast. Like, Jackie Chan fast. We can’t go toe-to-toe with them, so the plan is to hit them in daylight.”
“They’ll all be asleep,” Murphy said.
“Maybe not,” Kincaid said. “The old ones don’t need to sometimes. Mavra could be functional.”
“And what’s more,” I said, “she’s a practitioner. A sorceress at least.”
Kincaid inhaled and exhaled slowly through his nose. He finished the bite he was on, and then he said, “Shit,” before taking another.
Murphy frowned. “What do you mean, a sorceress at least?”
“Kind of an industry term,” I said. “Plenty of people can do a little magic. Small-time stuff. But sometimes the small-timers practice up, or tap into some kind of power source and get enough ability to be dangerous. A sorcerer is someone who can do some serious violence with magic.”
“Like the Shadowman,” Murphy said. “Or Kravos.”
“Yeah.”
“Good thing we got a wizard along then,” Kincaid said.
Murphy looked at me.
“Wizard means that you can do sorcery if you need to,” I said, “but it also means you can do a lot of other things too. A wizard’s power isn’t limited to blowing things up, or calling up demons. A good wizard can adapt his magic in almost any way he can imagine. Which is the problem.”
“What do you mean?” Murphy said.
“Mavra is good at veils,” I said, mostly to Kincaid. “Real good. She did some long range mental communications last night, too.”
Kincaid stopped eating.
“You’re saying that this vampire is a wizard?” Murphy asked.
Kincaid stared at me.
“It’s possible,” I said. “Maybe even likely. It would go a long way toward explaining how Mavra survived all this time.”
“This mission is heading for downtown FUBAR,” Kincaid said.
“You want out?” I asked.
He was silent for a minute and then shook his head. “But if Mavra is awake and active, and if she’s able to start tossing heavy magic around in closed quarters, we might as well drink some Bacardi-and-strychnine and save ourselves some walking.”
“You’re afraid of her,” Murphy said.
“Damn right,” Kincaid said.
She frowned. “Harry, can you shut down her magic? Like you did with Kravos?”
“Depends how strong she is,” I said. “But a wizard could handle her. Probably.”
Kincaid shook his head. “Magical lockdown. I’ve seen that work before,” he said. “One time I saw it fail. Everybody died.”
“Except you?” I asked.
“I was in back, covering our spellslinger when his head exploded. Barely made it out the door.” Kincaid pushed a piece of sausage around his plate. “Even if you can shut her down, Mavra’s still going to be real tough.”
“That’s why you get to charge so much,” I said.
“True.”
“We go in Stoker-standard,” I said. “Garlic, crosses, holy water, the works.”
“Hey,” Murphy said. “What about that pocketful-of-sunshine thing you told me about? With the white handkerchief you used on Bianca a few years back?”
I grimaced. “Can’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It’s impossible, Murph. It isn’t important why.” I hauled the conversation back on course. “We should be able to keep Mavra back until we deal with any goons. Then we can take her down. Any questions?”
Kincaid coughed significantly, and nodded at the table, where the waitress had, at some point, left us a bill. I frowned and fumbled through my pockets. I had enough to cover it, but only because I managed to find a couple of quarters in the various pockets of my duster. I left the money on the table. There wasn’t enough for a tip.
Kincaid regarded my lump of wrinkled small bills and change, then studied me with a distant, calculating gaze that would have made some people very nervous. Like people who had agreed to pay a lot of money but didn’t have any.
“That’s it for now then,” I said, rising. “Get anything you need ready, and we’ll go later today. I want to hit them as soon as I find them.”
Kincaid nodded and turned back to his plate. I left. My shoulder blades felt itchy when I turned my back to Kincaid. Murphy kept pace with me and we headed back to the Beetle.
Murphy and I didn’t talk while I drove her back to CPDHQ. Once we got there, and the car had stopped, she looked around the inside of my car, frowning. “What happened to the Beetle?”
“Mold demons.”
“Oh.”
“Murph?”
“Hmm?”
“You okay?”
She pressed her lips into a line. “I’m trying to adjust. In my head, I think what we’re doing is just about the only thing we responsibly can. But I’ve been a peace officer since before I could drink, and this kind of cowboy thing feels . . . wrong. It isn’t what a good cop does.”
“Depends on the cop, I think,” I said. “Mavra and her scourge are above the law, Murph, in every sense that matters. The only way they’re going to get stopped is if someone steps up and takes them down.”
“I know that here,” she said, and touched her own forehead with her finger. Then she clasped her hand into a fist and put it over her heart. “But I don’t feel it here.” She was quiet for a moment more and said, “The vampires aren’t the problem. I can fight that. Glad to. But there are going to be people around them, too. I don’t know if I can pull the trigger when there are going to be people around who could get hurt. I signed on to protect them, not to trap them in a cross fire.”
Not much I could say to that.
“Can I ask you something?” she said after a minute.
“Sure.”
She studied me with a faint, concerned frown. “Why can’t you do the sunshine thing? Seems like it would be really handy about now. It isn’t like you to call something impossible.”
I shrugged. “I tried it a couple years back,” I said. “After the war started. Turns out that you’ve got to be genuinely happy to be able to fold sunshine into a hankie. Otherwise it just doesn’t work.”
“Oh,” said Murphy.
I shrugged.
“I
guess I’ll be in Wolf Lake Park, at the picnic, for a few hours at lunchtime. But I’ll have my pager with me,” she said.
“Okay. Sorry I didn’t drag you into some horrifying, morally questionable, bloodthirsty carnage in time.”
She smiled, more with her eyes than her mouth. “See you in a while, Harry.” Murphy got out of the car. She checked her watch and sighed. “T minus two hours and counting down.”
I blinked at her. “Whoa.”
Murphy gave me a skeptical glance. “What?”
“Whoa,” I said again. Thoughts were congealing in my brain, and I raked through my memory to see if the facts fit the idea. “Countdown. Son of a bitch.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you have the police reports on the two women who died in California?”
Murphy lifted an eyebrow, but said, “In my car. Hang on a second.” She jogged a couple of spaces down to her car. I heard her pop open the trunk and slam it again. She reappeared with a thick manila folder and passed it to me.
I found the reports inside and scanned over them in rising excitement. “Here it is,” I said, jabbing a finger at the report. “I know how they’re doing it. Damn, I should have guessed this sooner.”
“How they’re doing what?” Murphy asked.
“The Evil Eye,” I said, the words hurrying together as I grew more excited. “The malocchio. The curse that’s hitting Genosa’s people. It’s on a timer.”
She tilted her head. “It’s automated?”
“No, no,” I said, waving my hands. “It’s on a schedule. Both women who died were killed in the morning, a little bit before ten o’clock.” I closed my eyes, trying to picture the reports Genosa had given me. “Right . . . nine forty-seven and nine forty-eight. They died at the same time.”
“That’s not the same time, Harry.”
I waved a hand, impatient. “They are. I’ll bet you anything. The recorded time gets written down by officers on the scene in their report, and who would worry about a minute either way?”
“Why is it significant?” Murphy said.
“Because the two curses that have struck here in Chicago arrived at eleven forty-seven in the morning, and damned close to that last night. Add two hours to the deaths in California to account for the difference in time zones. The curse was sent at the same time. Thirteen minutes before noon or midnight.” I followed the logic chain forward from that one fact. “Hell’s bells,” I breathed.
“I’m not going to ask you to explain every time you pause, Harry, because you know damned well I don’t have a clue about what you’re saying or what it means.”
“It means that the killer isn’t doing the curse on his own,” I said. “I mean, there’s no reason to do it that way, unless it’s because you don’t have a choice. The killer is using ritual magic. They’ve got a sponsor.”
“You don’t mean a corporation,” Murphy said.
“No,” I answered. “What time is it?”
“Ten-thirty,” Murphy said.
“Yes,” I hissed, and slammed the clutch into gear. “If I haul ass there’s time.”
“Time?”
“To protect Genosa and his people,” I said. “That entropy curse is coming down on them in about an hour.” I stomped on the gas and shouted out the window over my shoulder, “This time I’ll be ready for it!”
Chapter Twenty-four
I expected Genosa to look awful the next morning, but evidently I had a temporary monopoly on rough nights in Chicago. He was waiting for me at the door when I got to the studio, dressed in slacks and a tennis shirt, perfectly coiffed and genial. I got another European-type hug before I’d gotten all the way out of the Beetle.
“The malocchio, it happened again,” he said. “Didn’t it. Last night when you ran out.”
“Yeah,” I said.
He licked his lips. “Who?”
“Inari. She’s all right.”
Arturo blinked several times. “Inari? That’s insane. What possible threat could she be to anyone?”
Incipient succubus. No threat at all there. “There’s got to be some reason she was targeted. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
“She’s only a child,” Genosa said, and for the first time I heard something like real anger in his voice. That was something to be noted. When kind men grow angry, things are about to change. “Have you any idea who is behind it?”
“Not yet,” I said, and opened the storage compartment under the Beetle’s hood. “But this is definitely more than business for somebody. For them it’s personal. I think they’re going to take another swing this morning, and I’m going to have a surprise for them when they do.”
“How may I help?”
“Get the set moving like everything’s normal. I need to get a spell of my own ready.”
Arturo frowned at that, and it crinkled all the creases at the corners of his face into unfamiliar lines. “And that is all I can do?”
“For now.”
He sighed. “All right. May fortune smile on your efforts, Mister Dresden.”
“Don’t know why she’d start now,” I said, but gave him a quick smile by way of encouragement.
Genosa returned the smile and went back into the building. I followed him a couple of minutes later with my pack loaded with a fifty-foot retractable chalk line, a mirror, a box of tinfoil, and half a dozen candles. I hurried inside, and checked the greenroom and the dressing room before I found Jake Guffie loitering around the shooting studio in dark grey boxers and a loose silk robe. He had a paperback and a bottle of Gatorade, and was draped over his chair in a pose meant to convey calm and confidence. I’m not sure what made me think he was faking, but I knew it even before I spoke to him.
“Jake,” I said. “Just the guy I need to see.”
He jumped like a nervous cat and gave me a reproachful glance. “Oh. Good morning, Harry. What can I do for you?”
“I need your help with something for about ten minutes.”
He tilted his head at me. “Yeah? What?”
I hesitated for a moment and then shrugged. “I’m setting up a spell to protect everyone from evil magic.”
“Uh,” Jake said, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t want to disrespect your religion, man. But did someone spike your breakfast cereal with LSD or something?”
“What can I say, Jake. I’m insane but harmless. Come with me and help me draw some lines on the floor with chalk, and after that I’ll leave you alone.” I drew an X over my chest with a fingertip. “Cross my heart.”
He looked around, maybe for an excuse to leave, but then shook his head and stood up. “What the hell,” he said. “Maybe I’ll learn something.”
He followed me up the stairs to the top floor of the building. I found the northmost hall, put down my backpack, and started rummaging through it. Jake watched me for a minute before he said, “Is this some kind of feng shui thing?”
“Uh. Actually, it is, now that I think about it,” I said. “Feng shui is all about manipulating positive and negative energy around, right? Here, hold this. What I’m doing here is setting up a kind of . . . well, a lightning rod, for lack of a better analogy. I’m setting things up so that if that negative energy gathers again, it gets sent to the place I want it to go, rather than at a particular target. Like a person.”
“Feng shui,” he said. “Okay, I can buy that.”
“Let me snap this,” I said, and did, leaving a line of light blue chalk on the floor. “There. Come on.” I started down the hall, and after a moment Jake came after me.
I really did need someone’s help, and if I had to get someone to give me a hand on the set, I wanted either Jake or Joan, as the least disturbing—or at least the least threatening—folks I had met. And since Joan was a woman, and therefore more likely to become a target of the curse, I didn’t want her running back and forth through this gathering spell. The point was to move the bad mojo away, after all. It would have been silly to leave her standing right
there in the middle of it.
Even if Jake wasn’t an overt believer in the supernatural scene, he was at least laid-back enough that he proved to be a capable helper. I had him follow me around the building with the end of the chalk line in hand. On each level of the building I tried to move around as much of the building’s perimeter as I could, leaving chalk lines on the floors and walls. I would lay down the line, snapping it against the surface to leave a light dusting of blue chalk—and as I did I poured out a whisper of my will with it, leaving each of the chalk lines quivering with a small amount of energy. My goal was to lay enough of these spikes of directional energy to make sure that when the curse came in again, it would have to cross at least one of them.
If everything worked to plan, the curse would come flying toward its target, cross one or more of my spikes, and be redirected to follow the lines. Then, at the approximate center of the building, which turned out to be a darkened corner of the soundstage, I laid down my mirror, shiny side up, and set up my candles at the cardinal points of another circle centered around the it. The spikes of force led directly toward the mirror, and I took the time to mark out another circle and light the candles, leaving a subtle quiver of energy in the new circle, too.
“Oh, right,” Jake said. “I read about this one. Mirror to pull the bad mojo away?”
“Sort of,” I said, standing up and dusting off my hands. “If I’ve done it right, the curse comes flying in, hits the mirror, and bounces back at whoever threw it.”
Jake lifted his eyebrows. “That’s kind of hostile, man.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “Someone tries to send good vibes at us, they’ll get that bounced back at them. They go trying to pull off another killing . . . well. What goes around comes around.”
“Hey, that’s a fundamental core of many religions,” Jake said. “Golden rule, man.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “Maybe a little more literal than usual, in this case.”
“You really think this place is cursed?” Jake said. His expression was thoughtful.
“I think someone doesn’t want Arturo’s new company to succeed,” I replied. “Among other things.”
